If this nun-doctor can’t get a vaccine religious exemption, who can?

Washington D.C., Jul 15, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Trump administration announced a new rule on Monday, changing the asylum application process along the U.S.-Mexco border.

The interim rule, which will be published in the Federal Register July 16, will require that anyone seeking asylum at the United States’ southern border must have first applied and been rejected for asylum in any third country they have travelled through. The rule is set to go into effect on Tuesday.

The change in policy means that a person fleeing – for example – Guatemala, who traveled through Mexico before presenting themselves at a legal port of entry into the United States, would first have to claim and be rejected for asylum in Mexico in order to be eligible to claim asylum in the United States. 

The new rule brings asylum policy along the southern border in line with current policy along the northern border with Canada. Under the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement, enacted in 2004, a person must make a claim for asylum in either the United States or Canada, depending on where they arrive first. A similar policy, the Dublin Regulation, exists in the European Union. 

“Pursuant to statutory authority, the Departments are amending their respective regulations to provide that, with limited exceptions, an alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which the alien transited en route to the United States is ineligible for asylum,” reads the new rule. 

The rule will apply to people who apply for asylum or enter the United States after July 16. 

In addition to those who have already been rejected for aylum in a third country, “limited exceptions” to the new rule apply to survivors of human trafficking, and those who traveled through a country that has not signed an international treaty regarding refugee management. These people would still be eligible to apply immediately for asylum at the U.S. border.

Currently, a person may apply for asylum at the United States’ southern border, regardless of the number of other countries through which they travelled to arrive there. 

Under the new rule, the failure to seek asylum in a third country traveled through on the way to the U.S. border will also be considered under the “credible fear” screening, which is the first step in the asylum process. A person seeking asylum must prove that they have a credible fear for their lives in their country of origin, due to their race, ethnicity, or other factors. 

Although the rule “does not change the credible-fear standard for asylum claims,” the person doing the interview must consider whether or not the person seeking asylum has traveled through a third country without seeking asylum there. 

The number of asylum claims has dramatically increased over the last decade, with very few asylees being allowed to stay. In 2009, there were 35,811 people who applied for asylum in the United States, and 8,384 were granted. In 2018, that number had more than quadrupled to 162,060 claims, with 13,168 actually granted. 

The announcement follows a weekend in which immigration enforcement officers began carrying out a series of pre-announced raids aimed at removing approximately 2,000 people in cities across the country. The enforcement action is targeting individuals whose removal has ordered by the courts.

Several bishops in the United States issued statements opposing the enforcement action. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark issued a statement ahead of the raids, which began Sunday, in which he said that they “will not provide a solution to our broken immigration system.”

“Instead,” the cardinal wrote, “they will cause more suffering to immigrant families, many of whom have been subject to detention, family separation, and violence.”

“Particularly disturbing is that these raids will be carried out as other families are attending Mass or services in churches, synagogues, or mosques,” Tobin said. “These enforcement actions should not be pursued on or around church property, as our brothers and sisters should not be afraid to worship God. It would show disrespect to all who worship and to God our Creator, who created us in His image.”

Despite no details being made available, President Trump praised the raids, claiming they were widespread and thousands were deported.

“The ICE raids were very successful — people came into our country illegally, illegally,” said Trump to reporters at the White House. “Many, many were taken out on Sunday, you just didn’t know about it.”

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Harvard Memorial Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. / Jon Bilous/Shutterstock

Washington D.C., Jun 9, 2021 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
The Harvard Catholic Center is in its first year of launching an initiative to engage the university, a… […]

Washington D.C., Mar 4, 2020 / 01:05 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court heard arguments on Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act on Wednesday, as justices questioned lawyers from both sides on the state’s safety regulations for abortion clinics, including a requirement that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

The court met March 4 to hear oral arguments in the case of June Medical Services v. Russo. As justices probed the necessity of the state’s requirements, outside the court an advocate for post-abortive women took issue with the justices’ skepticism toward the law.

Cynthia Collins, founder of the Louisiana Abortion Recovery Alliance, and herself a post-abortive woman, told CNA after arguments that the justices “were trying to silence our voices, of the women that have been hurt by abortion.”

“And their voices are the same as the abortionists, to get up, get out, and stay silent, when we’ve been injured by abortion,” she said.

The Louisiana law (Act 620) was enacted in 2014 and requires that abortionists in the state have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles in case of complications that may arise during or after the procedure. The law would hold abortion clinics to the same safety standards that apply to other medical clinics in the state.

The Shreveport abortion clinic Hope Medical Group for Women sued, saying the regulations posed an undue burden on the ability of women to have an abortion.

A district court first issued a restraining order on the enforcement of the law’s penalties. Then, in 2016, the court issued a preliminary injunction on the law. Later that year, after the Supreme Court later struck down a similar Texas law in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the district court permanently enjoined Louisiana’s law from going into effect.

That decision was reversed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which said that the law posed a benefit to women’s health and did not put substantial burdens on abortion in the state.

Unlike in Texas where most clinics closed because of its law, “only one doctor at one clinic is currently unable to obtain [admitting] privileges” in Louisiana, the Fifth Circuit said. 

Reviewing the evidence of the case before the district circuit, the Fifth Circuit also found that some abortionists did not try hard enough to obtain admitting privileges at hospitals.

The case went to the Supreme Court, and more than 200 members of Congress signed an amicus brief in favor of the law. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), who is facing a tough primary battle against a pro-abortion opponent, signed the brief, an act his opponent Marie Newman highlighted in an attack against him.

Wednesday’s arguments focused on two main questions—on whether an abortion clinic, rather than women in the state, has “third-party standing” to bring such a case before the Court, and whether the admitting privileges requirements violate the Constitution by imposing a substantial burden on legal abortion rights.

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—the newest justices on the bench who could be deciding votes in a 5-4 case—said little on Wednesday, with Justice Samuel Alito being the most vocal member in questioning the abortion clinic’s case against the law.

The “third-party standing” question referred to the legitimacy of abortion clinics, instead of women of the state, arguing before the Court that the law would substantially burden abortion.

Elizabeth Murrill, Louisiana’s Solicitor General arguing in favor of the law, said that “these doctors should not be able to challenge regulations intended to protect a certain class of people.”

The attorney representing June Medical Services, L.L.C., defended the rights of abortion clinics to bring “third-party” lawsuits against state laws, even if a conflict of interest might exist between the clinics’ desire to do business and the safety of women they claim to represent.

Justice Alito called the argument “amazing.” 

“You think that if the plaintiff actually has interests that are directly contrary to those individuals on whose behalf the plaintiff is claiming to sue, nevertheless that plaintiff can have standing?”  

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeatedly asked why the admitting privileges requirement was relevant to women’s health, given that many women might experience abortion-related complications at home, after having visited a clinic, and thus would go to the hospital by themselves.

Questions also arose as to whether Louisiana’s law is substantially different from Texas regulations struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016 in the Hellerstedt case, with lawyers for the state arguing that the law was “justified by abundant evidence of life-threatening health and safety violations, malpractice, noncompliance with professional licensing rules, legislative testimony from post-abortive women, [and] testimony from doctors who took care of abortion providers’ abandoned patients.”

In one case, Murrill said, an abortionist testified that he transferred four women to a hospital for abortion-related hemorrhaging. The same doctor also admitted in testimony that he hired a radiologist and an ophthalmologist to do abortions, she said, posing clear safety risks to women.

Jeffrey Wall, U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General who argued in support of Louisiana’s law on Wednesday, noted that the doctor’s testimony of transferring the four women to hospitals was proof that, while “often” complications might be experienced by women at their home and not at the clinic, they “sometimes” do occur while women are still at the clinic.

In such cases, Wall said, the best practice would be admission to a hospital—something backed up even by the abortionist’s testimony.

Abortionists “could and did” obtain admitting privileges at hospitals, she said, but did not maintain close relationships with their patients who had to litigate their own cases involving harmful effects of abortion.

The chair of the pro-life committee of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, said on Wednesday that states “have a strong interest in regulating a procedure which is lethal to children and immensely damaging to women.”

“Women, their bodies, and their babies are immeasurably valuable,” the archbishop said in a statement. “It adds insult to injury, and speaks to the callousness of the abortion industry, that providers are seeking to overturn basic, standard protections for women seeking this life-altering procedure.”

In his statement issued after Wednesday’s oral arguments, Archbishop Naumann called on Catholics to pray for the outcome.

“The Catholic Church encourages all people of faith to pray about the outcome to this very important case,” Archbishop Naumann stated on Wednesday.

“We also ask all to pray for the women who are compelled to seek abortion: that they may find alternatives that value their health and well-being, and the lives of their precious children.”

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